“Toubia told the Mail that the thin-cut steaks first produced in 2018 will be available in some restaurants next year, with previous estimates putting put the price tag at $50.”
Well, it’ll be a while before this is competitive with the natural way LOL!
Could be a great treat for astronauts though.
Any product at the lab, or prototype stage will be an order of magnitude more expressive than it’s mass produced full production product.
What’s likely to be cheaper on an industrial scale. Growing cell cultures in 10,000 hectaliter vats where the cultures double in mass in days ready for harvest being nurtured in sealed temperature controlled environment with well measured ideal growth nutrients and conditions. Or 18 month gestation and growth cycle of livestock requiring not only feed or access to pasture but also medical care and husbandry practices.
This would be the equivalent to some small home brewery vs Budweiser in volume of the fermentation vats. Once the practice of mass cellular cultures for animals cells is perfected it is inevitable for that mass of cells to be massively cheaper to produce on a kg for kg basis than in a live animal.
Ask yourself why is insulin grown in massive vats vs the original practice of harvesting it from live pig pancreas it’s the exact same scale up of the desired biological product. The very same cloning technology that is being used to make and test the Covid vaccines is used to grow cell lines of human tissue can and has been applied to live stock. The breakthrew here is taking the cultured cells and making a heterogeneous product that has muscle cells, fat cells, and connective tissue cells in the proper ratio and configuration to approximate the look and consistency of steak. The use of cellular cultures for protein as a additive or feed ingredient is long standing. Microbial protein cultures have been used in the megaton amounts for 30+ years some were even grown on natural gas vs plant based nutrients under the name of Purine. It’s only a matter of time until the scale up of animal vs microbial bioreactor technology makes those cellular protein sources as a low cost option. It is inevitable.